Thursday, January 28, 2010

Well Black Head had her babies on Tuesday night. She had two little boys. We would have really liked for her to have a girl that we could have kept. She is a really good mom and the babies are doing well. Here they are:

Friday, January 22, 2010

Yesterday when I got home from work we had a new baby goat. Our goat we call Fat Neck had a baby girl that weighed 7.05 lbs. I was hoping she would have twins like she did last year but no such luck. She is a really good mama though. She is one that I never have to worry about. After getting her all situated I went to the Razorback game last night (which we lost and was very disappointing). When I got home I went down to check on the babies and another goat had a baby while I was gone. This time it was our Black Nubian. This our first year to have her. She apparently had no problems either. The baby was all dried off and nursing. She is a very good mother as well. I will definitely keep her around. Her baby was also a little girl and weighed 6.23 lbs. Although I would prefer two babies each on these goats I am glad they both had girls and that they are good mothers. There is one kind of crazy thing about these babies though. There mama's are not related and not even the same kind of goat and their dad's are different and not the same kind of goat. So, none of the parents of these two babies are related or the same kind at all, yet they look almost alike. Isn't that crazy?

Thursday, January 21, 2010

It is that time of year again. Gambling on the farm. My co-workers do a goat pool every year where everyone tries to pick the exact day that one of my goats is going to have her babies. This year we are going to guess for the goat that we call "Black Head". You can see her big belly below, it looks a lot bigger in person. I feel sorry for her. She should have at least twins, and hopefully three. We have yet to have a goat have three but I think this could be our year. Margo decided she wanted to measure her belly to see how big it is. The official belly measurement is 53 inches, that is even bigger than our friend Sarah was with Audrey.

Monday, January 18, 2010

We unexpectedly had a baby goat yesterday. All of our goats are pregnant and due soon, some of them any day. The one that had one yesterday was not one that we thought would have babies any day. The mama that had one was one of our nubian cross (the gray one) that we bought this past year. She only had one which is a little disappointing but this is her first baby so that is pretty normal. She had it without any issues. In fact, when we got home from church yesterday, there was no baby. We ate lunch and took a nap and when we got up we went outside and there the baby was, walking around like it was no big deal. It is a boy and weighed 8.45 pounds which is pretty average. The baby's dad is Albi and he looks just like him.

Saturday, January 09, 2010

Are you sitting down? THE FARM OF HALE IS MOVING (at least we are going to try to). Margo and I have been presented with a great opportunity that we can't pass up. I will give you the short story. A friend of a friend has offered to let us rent a place in Fayetteville for a really good price. The house is really nice and bigger than what we are in now. It is on a few acres of land and we will be able to still have some of our animals. It will definitely be less of a farm but we won't have to give it up completely. You may ask, why in the world would we give up our when we love to farm so much and give up the farm that we have worked hard on. There are a few reasons, like living in Fayetteville where we work and play, but the main reason is money. We will be able to save a lot of money by moving. We pay a pretty big mortgage payment each month and very little of it goes to principle. Most of it we loose in interest and taxes and that won't change for several years. By moving to this new place for a pretty cheap rent we will be able to save a lot of money. Hopefully after a few years we will be able to save up a big chunk of money. And then we will be able to get another farm that is more where and what we want and be able to pay for a lot of it with the money we have saved. We have always known that we did not want to stay in our current location long term so when this opportunity arose we thought we would jump on it. If it works out it will help us get way ahead on paying for a house. So, that is the short version. If you want to know more details, let me know and I will further explain it to you. The only catch is that we have to sell our house before we can get into this other place. We aren't obligated to this other place so if we don't sell our place then we will just stay here but we would really like to sell it. So, if you know of anyone who might be interested in our little farm, send them our way. I created a blog website about our house for sale with a full description. You can check it out by clicking here, and then send it to everyone you know who might be interested.